On this page, I’ll be sharing stories that can be told to children. Please feel free to use them. If you would like the powerpoint presentation that goes with it, please let me know and I’ll send it to you. Christiane

The Day my Canadian Father Got Stuck in the Snow

Lots of kids who heard this story already are all grown up. But there’s a lot to this story, and I’m going to tell a little bit more this time. Maybe there’s something here for kids from 1 to 110. First, here’s a little hint. In Psalm 139: 12 it says “even darkness isn’t dark to you, darkness and light are the same to you.” What do you think? Can darkness be a good thing? You might hear little bits of French words in this story because my mind hears them when I tell it. In my story are horses, a car, three children, the longest covered bridge ever, my parents, lots of snow, and my grandmother. (not an itty bitty covered bridge either!)

Me and my brother Gaetan and sister Michelle loved my grandmother because she really loved us. She would rock us and sing songs like “dodo l’efant do, le…” and she had beautiful smile wrinkles whenever she saw us. She taught me how to knit and how to play her pump organ. Grandmothers are kind of like Jesus. He loved us before we loved Him. He teaches us things. He loves to see us and gave us songs like psalm 139:13 “you knit me in my mother’s womb,” and Jeremiah 31:3 “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” Did you ever see a covered bridge? I bet you never saw one like this. We used to walk across it and look out into the river. When my parents drove across it, we felt a little bump in the middle. We didn’t know the name of it. We called it “Le pont de Grandmaman.” Grandma’s bridge. I loved the design of the wood slats and the sound of our footsteps echoing when we’d walk across the wood floor of the bridge to get to the other side of the river – It’s name is Rivière Chaudière. People who drove by in their cars knew we were “les enfant de Victorien” (Victorien’s children) and would wave. We’d go to the other side and buy little cakes in the store.

We lived in Canada, in Quebec, and there’s lots of snow there. On this day, it was January 6. We called it Little Christmas and we would go visit our grandmother on that day. It was one hundred miles, which seemed like such a big number of miles back then. We always sang in the car. I was six, my brother was 4 and my sister was 3 years old. We sang “Un elephant, sa trompe….” And that’s how we learned to count. And that day, while we sang, it was snowing, and snowing, and snowing.

But my father kept driving and driving and driving. Canadians don’t seem to care about snow. The snow got deeper and deeper, and deeper, until the car got stuck. It was night time. My father was so smart and so strong. We weren’t worried because we trusted him. He could get slivers out of our fingers that doctors couldn’t even get. Yup. He could do anything.

He got out of the car and put chains on. Got back in and kept driving and driving and driving. The snow kept on coming and getting deeper and deeper and deeper. We were almost there and we got stuck again.

The snow was up to the car door and it kept snowing and snowing and snowing. My father got out again and he was gone a long while. But we kept on singing and learning higher numbers in French like 565. When we didn’t know the next number, we asked our mom. She was very smart too.

Soon, my father returned. I could smell horses, but it was hard to see because it was night and there was so much snow coming down. I could hear them too. Soon, my father picked us up, one at a time and put us on a wagon. I never saw the wagon. I could just feel it under me. He threw a blanket over us to protect us from the cold, and it was very very dark under the blanket. We weren’t worried because we just trusted our father. He was so smart and so strong. Soon, we felt the cart move. Our car was stuck just before the covered bridge opening, right there, just before you drive in, but far enough that it wasn’t possible.

So, it wasn’t long before I could hear the clomp clomp clomp of the horses trotting across the longest ever covered bridge. They sounded happy. We felt the wagon moving. It was so dark but we weren’t worried. Then we were across Grandmaman’s bridge. I could tell because there was no more clomping. The horses were trudging and we heard the crunch crunch crunch of the snow. A few more minutes, and we arrived. I could feel the wagon and horses stop. It was so dark. Then my parents took the blanket off. We could feel the snow falling on our faces as we looked up. My grandmother came out on her porch with her big wrinkly smile. The glow of light from her kitchen was like gold. We were so happy to see her! Soon we were in the comforting and warm house hugging our grandmother.

Do you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me that sometimes in our life, things get very dark. We can’t see what’s happening.

We hear things and feel things and don’t understand what’s happening. Small children trust their parents so much, but when we’re big, we forget that Jesus loves us. And sometimes even when we’re kids we might not be so sure our parents are big enough or smart enough to fix everything that’s happening. We forget that Jesus will help us get to the right place if we trust Him. We should ask Him right now to remind us that He is big and smart and can do anything, and when it’s dark and we don’t know what’s happening, we will feel so much better if we trust Him.

(See end of article for photo credit) Soon, we’ll see Him in the sky with the glow of Heaven behind him. We’ll see His smile and we’ll be so glad we trusted when He had to put the blanket of darkness over us to keep us safe. And soon we will be in the comforting place called Heaven. Let’s ask Him to remind us when things are dark that He cares. (pray) By Christiane Marshall

Photo credits: some personal photos, photos of covered bridge found online, location: Chaudiere River in Notre Dame des Pins, Beauce County, QC., URL: http://www.dalejtravis.com/bridge/quebec/htm/6100601.htm,  name of bridge is Pont couvert de Notre-Dame-des-Pins_istock photo for some are embedded in photos, last photo found on page: https://www.pulse.ng/communities/religion/end-times-god-shows-signal-of-jesus-second-coming-in-israel-video/svd0jtt_Let me know if I missed any credits. I will add them and link back. Thank you